AJ Maddah “Quite Confident” Warped Tour Australia 2014 Will Go Ahead

By Nastassia Baroni

Promoter AJ Maddah has said he will find out in the coming weeks whether the Australian leg of the Warped Tour will go ahead in 2014, but has told his loyal Twitter followers he is quite “confident” that it will.

Last week, via Twitter, Maddah said he would be visiting “the boss” Kevin Lyman sometime in April, to determine the fate of the tour. When asked just a few hours ago how the festival lineup is progressing, Maddah responded “haven’t [sic] started booking yet as not 100% to go ahead yet.”

Maddah then quickly quelled the fears of that same follower, letting them know he was “quite confident” the tour would go on. Further details will presumably be provided in the coming weeks.

After previously stating Coffs Harbour and Canberra won’t see a Warped return in 2014, Maddah has now also confirmed that Vans Warped Tour Australia would not return to Adelaide. Answering another SA fan, the promoter said “even if” Warped goes ahead in Australia in 2014 “we can’t do Adelaide”.

Just last month Maddah shared some details of a possible shake-up of the planned 2014 tour, if it was to go ahead, to adjust for some of 2013’s shortcomings.

“Sadly the attendance last year was very poor,” explained Maddah about the Canberra leg. Other proposed changes included pushing the dates back by a week and moving the event’s Sydney leg from Barangaroo to a new location.

Maddah seemed to seal the fate of the Coffs Harbour leg of Warped Tour Australia, which had suffered from lacklustre attendance. The mogul explained that Coffs Harbour “was an attendance disaster”, blaming the fact that a majority of the potential market for the event were away on schoolies. He suggested that organisers may move the event to festival hub, Byron Bay.

Maddah also added that the changes do not necessarily rule out all regional areas of Australia, telling one Twitter follower that it will, however, “rule out places where not many kids turned up!”

All this has not stopped the famously transparent promoter from fuelling rumours on who fans might see on the lineup for the yet-to-be confirmed 2014 instalment of the festival. He has already speculated about bringing out Orange County punk heroes Social Distortion, and has extended an invitation to New York-based pop-punk outfit Patent Pending and Aussie ska punks Area 7.

Via Twitter he promised one fan to try and book Floridian punks We The Kings and gave the virtual nod to Emily’s Army, 36 Crazyfists, Stick To Your Guns, Gideon and Sworn In.

Meanwhile, the US leg of the Vans Warped Tour kicked off this week, with a pre-party hosted at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Media and fans were given a chance to sample what will be on the bill for the 2014 festival event in Los Angeles. Already announced bands for the US tour include, deathcore act Chelsea Grin, Florida punk group Less Than Jake, Bayside vocalist Anthony Raneri and LA-based punks Yellowcard.

Nastassia Baroni
Nastassia Baroni

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